As Christmas draws near, I want to comment of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, drawing from the first two essays in the latest issue of Christianity Today (Russell Moore, “All I want for Christmas is a time machine”; Deborah Haarsma, “The Incarnation sheds light on Astrophysics”).
My first three posts about Christmas date to 2011, 2012 and finally 2013 (“Honoring the Birth of the Second Adam”). They were all written in the mode of Muslim-Christian dialogue. That’s not the case here, but astrophysicist Deborah Haarsma mentions a 2022 Barna survey of people claiming no religious affiliation, in which respondents said that one of the top reasons that they doubted Christian beliefs was “science.” Therefore, Muslims and Jews reading along will no doubt find some benefit, as we all share a belief in the Creator God and face a society increasingly skeptical about the relationship between faith and science.
The biggest issue, perhaps, relates to “human significance” in light of the unfathomable vastness of our world. In Haarsma’s words,
“In our solar system, the Sun carries the Earth and other planets along as it orbits the Milky Way galaxy, sailing among a vast number of stars of which it is but one.
Astronomers estimate the total number of stars in our galaxy at about 100 billion; the majority are distant and dim, with only a sprinkling of 5,000 or so bright enough to see with the human eye.
Beyond the Milky Way, many more galaxies are scattered along huge filaments throughout space. Some clump together in small groups, like the Milky Way and its neighbor galaxy Andromeda.
Many merge and collide throughout their lives, accumulating mass and birthing new stars. Hundreds or even thousands of galaxies can conglomerate in rich galaxy clusters, which are some of the largest objects known to humans.”
How many galaxies are there altogether? We cannot know, since even with the best telescopes we can only see so far. “But researchers recently measured the collective faint light of the galaxies and estimated that the visible universe contains hundreds of billions of galaxies—each of which contains billions or trillions of stars.”
But there is more: we now know that “27 percent of the universe is dark matter—a scientific mystery that doesn’t emit or block light and that we can detect only by its gravitational effect on other matter.” That is not all: 68 percent of the universe is “dark energy,” a substance even more difficult to apprehend, but which explains the continuous expansion of the universe.
All this to say that science can only account for 5 percent of our universe, including “all the stars and all the atoms on the Periodic Table.” This only reinforces the fact that as human beings we are “dwarfed by both the creation and the Creator.” As David exclaimed in Psalm 8, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place, what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care about them?” (vs.3-4, NLT). What is more, Paul was likely quoting from an early hymn of the church when he wrote, “for through [Christ] God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth” (Colossians 1:16). And this same cosmic Christ is, in the words of John the Evangelist, the “Word” that “became human and made his home among us” (John 1:14, NLT).
The Incarnation in the light of current science means that Christ’s virgin birth gave him a body made from the atoms that “have their origins in the heavens”:
“Hydrogen dates back to the beginning of the universe, when protons formed from cooling primordial plasma. Other elements needed for life—like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen—arose by nuclear fusion in the cores of stars.” And when “a star dies in a supernova explosion, the atoms are flung into space.” These explosions form new elements as well, like cobalt and nickel.
As Carl Sagan used to say, our bodies are formed of “star stuff.” Haarsma quips, “Through the Incarnation, God himself took on stardust when he took on human flesh.” She adds, “Those atoms assembled into genes to give shape to his bones and blood and into organic chemicals shared with all life on earth.” This means that “[e]ach cell of Jesus’ body embodies his love for his creation,” including all living beings and all the elements of our common home on earth. The cosmic dimensions of the Incarnation also point to God’s dazzling love for the people he came to save and thereby recruit them to live with him in the new heaven and the new Earth which will come together in the New Jerusalem. For then creation will be completely renewed. And above all, God will make his home among his people, his “children” (Revelation 21:7).
The bending of time and space
One of the things Haarsma loves most about astrophysics is that it focuses on phenomena that could not possibly happen on Earth. Albert Einstein discovered, for instance, that gravity is not so much a force (as Newton said) as it is “a distortion of the fabric of space-time.” Thus, light is itself affected by gravity. In fact, the mass of galaxy clusters is so great that “space curves substantially over large [these] distances.” A galaxy cluster, by causing light to bend around it, then becomes a “gravitational lens,” like a warped window distorts the object we see through it.
Yet the theory of relativity teaches us more than “curved space”:
“Relativity describes deep and beautiful symmetries in the cosmos—between time and space, energy and momentum. Moreover, the same laws hold true in every location and circumstance we’ve been able to test. For those who can read the equations, the depth and universality of the mathematics is stunning. Many physicists have thus sensed the divine behind it. In 1948, Einstein himself told his friend William Hermanns, ‘I meet [God] every day in the harmonious laws which govern the universe. My religion is cosmic.’”
As I was initially reading these two essays, I realized that both of them mentioned the warping of time and space—but in very different contexts. I would like to bring them together now. Haarsma mentioned it in relation to Einstein's theory of relativity. In the above quote, she emphasizes how this bending of time and space “describes beautiful symmetries in the cosmos” which scientists can access through mathematics. And as they do so, they are filled with a sense of wonder that for some of them points directly to a Creator.
Russell Moore, editor-at-large and columnist for Christianity Today, begins his own discussion of the warping of time and space with the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration (Mat. 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36):
“In that moment on the mountain, Peter, James, and John see Jesus overshadowed with a cloud, incandescent with glory, and hear him addressed by God’s voice. [Moses and Elijah appear, discussing with Jesus his coming death and resurrection]. The moment ties together much of the rest of the biblical story: the pillar of fire and cloud that guided Israel through the wilderness, the teaching of Jesus (summoning them to a mountain), the crucifixion of Jesus, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the glory of the New Jerusalem to come—it’s all there.”
Moore then cites Anglican poet and priest Malcolm Guite’s recent book, Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God. What if the mountain top experiences of Moses and Elijah (several centuries later), and the Transfiguration itself are one and the same event? Guite wonders, “If Moses and Elijah saw the face of God in a mystery then it could be none other than the face of Christ.” In this case, both time and space were bent to bring these three figures together—from Mount Sinai in the southwest and Mount Carmel in the north, and from the distant past and back. This certainly seems plausible, says Moore, and especially in the case of Moses, whose face as he came down the mountain shone so “painfully brilliant” that it must have been “the glory streaming from the face of the transfigured Christ.”
Moore reminds us that contemporary science has discovered that in our universe—or “pluriverses,” as some scientists call it—space and time interact in very unexpected ways, and we know so little about it as of yet. Yet the lesson from the Transfiguration (even without Guite’s suggestion) nudges us a bit closer to the mystery of how an infinite God can listen with tenderness to the prayers of people throughout the ages and throughout the world in real time. The very fact that he transcends time and space also means that he can be intimately present with each human being that calls out to him.
We know this from the Christmas story. Whether it be the shepherds guarding their flocks that night in the fields near Bethlehem to whom angels appeared with the good news, or with the Wise Men who about two years before saw an extraordinary star in the Persian sky—both groups found their way into the presence of the divine child and his parents, Mary and Joseph. Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah who about six centuries before spoke about the virgin girl whose child will be called “Immanuel”—God with us.
As we just saw, modern science still knows very little about our universe, particularly about the “distortion of the fabric of space and time.” It’s no great stretch, then, to see the Incarnation of God’s Son as the “gravitational lens” pulling together all the strands of humanity’s history, which itself finds its meaning and purpose in God’s redemptive plan played out in the Bible—from creation to its final fulfillment in the City of God. And better yet, within this great cosmic panorama, I know that I am loved. Jesus was born of Mary so that you and I could become God’s beloved children. John, who witnessed the Transfiguration, also wrote: “But to all who believed him and received him, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). We know God's loves all his children.
I’ll conclude with these last words of Russell Moore’s piece:
“We can’t relive the past. We can’t peer into the future. We can’t even hold on to the present. In the eternal ’today’ of the God who created and fills and transcends time, we can only know this: God is with us.”